Name: Techno
History: Techno is a word that is used for many kinds of
music, and is therefor often used incorrectly.
The word has become popular, and people
who dosent know a thing about techno use it when
ever they hear something that has 909 bassdrums,
"4onTheFloor" rythemes, samples and synth
instruments. So, to them, every piece of
electronic music is techno, witch is wrong
because techno today is an independant style.
Some of the explanation for this style confusion
can be found in the history of techno. The word
techno was, in the early periode of electronic
music, used like the word Rave, about allmost
eny kind of electronic music. So you could say that
techno is the great granfather of most electronic
styles today. That is why you carnt really say
that these people are wrong when they use the
word about enything.
Sound: So how do you then identify a techno track?.. Well
that can be very hard, but if the track dosent
belong to eny other style, then I would say that
it must be techno, or a totaly new style. Enyway
the music has to have a special feeling when it
is techno; its a kind of aggressive or sometimes
careless mood. This is because techno is made for
people to dance to, so they can let all their
aggressions out. The music dosent really mean
enything, there is nothing to think about, no
annoying themes to listen to and if there is,
they are often very short. So the most
important thing in techno is the beat.
Instruments: Enything will do: samples, analogous instruments,
because its not really that important..
Beats: "4OnTheFloor" 100-140 bpm hard minimalistic
rythemes with drums from tr909.
Modules: aminet
Subgenres:
-Detroit: as the word states this kind of techno
comes from Detroit city in USA. The people behind
the style is mainly black americans, and they
claim today that they invented the musical
blueprints of techno. By the blueprints I mean
the way a techno tune is constructed with
fast 4OnTheFloor rythmes, short themes and so on.
As allways the europeans adopted the style quickly
and developed it further on, while the people in
USA diddent want to recognize the new music style
because it was made by black people.
Detroit music uses often very dirty sounds that
has been distorted, the beat is fast and the
themes is short, effective and minimal.
aminet search
-Minimalism: As the word indicates this kind of
techno has a very minimal expression. A
minimalistic track consist only of the basic
elements like drums, bas and maybe one theme or
two; so there is absolutely no stuffing in the
music. There is 2 kinds of minimalism; the fast
noisy kind, where the beat is the dominating
factor with very few other instruments or
themes; and the slower, silent, sleepy kind, with
a less dominant beat, accompanied by echoing
analogous instruments. In this kind the silent
parts is often used like an instrument.
aminet search
-Acid: like acidhouse acid is basicly build on
the sound created by the TB303. If there isent
eny TB303 in the track, then it carnt by
definition be an acid tune. Besides the 303
there is often allso an tr909 or an tr808
involved, accompanied by wird noisy sounds
or people shoting. The mood is often hard
and aggressive and the music is often
striped down to just 2 303's and one tr909,
witch gives it a kind of minimal kick, but is not
100% minimal because the tb303 all the time is
filtered up and down.
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-Electro: was founded by Kraftwerk, the pioners of
electronic music. The instruments in Electro is
often clean analogous instruments, funny blips
and strings. Electro allso has alot of robot
voices, and an other very important thing is that
the beat dosent have to be a fast 4OnTheFloor
rythme.
aminet search
-Experimental techno: Experimental music can be
many thinges, but to me experimental techno
has alot of dark sleepy string, with a
monotome very low Bassdrum, and a anonymous
kind of break on top of it. This is accompanied
by silent 303 sounds or other classic techno
sounds, in a melodic theme.
aminet search
-Crossover techno: This is a new phenomenon, where
the basic idear is to make techno hybrides with
other styles (fusion music) |